Region 8 is 7th poorest in the country; Matuguinao town declared poorest in the region

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
August 20, 2006

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte  –  Region 8 is the seventh poorest region in the Philippines, no longer what it has always been known before as the poorest region of the country.

This declaration of Ms. Vangie Paran, head of the National Statistical Coordination Board, as she presented the latest poverty estimate of all the municipalities of the Region. Ms. Paran said that this is the first time that the data per municipality has been made available. In the past, NSCB has always made presentations only by province.

Among the top ten poorest municipalities in the Region, six are located in the province of Samar, two from Northern Samar, one from Eastern Samar and one from Leyte.

Ms. Paran said that the poverty incidence is the proportion of poor population to total population. The methodology employed to generate poverty incidence was small-area estimation using the data of the 2000 Family Income and Expenditure Survey, 2000 Labor Force Survey and 2000 Census of Population and Housing.

Ms. Paran bared that Matuguinao, Samar is the poorest municipality in Region 8 with poverty incidence of 72.16. This means, she said, that 7 out of 10 people in Matuguinao are poor.

Ranking second is the Municipality of Daram, also in Samar with poverty incidence of 71.05 and closely followed by the municipality of Zumarraga, again in Samar with poverty incidence of 68.60 percent.

Silvino Lobos in Northern Samar ranks number four with poverty incidence of 67.93 percent while San Jose de Buan in Samar placed number five with a total poverty incidence of 65.67%.

The other municipalities which made it to top ten poorest are Jipapad in Eastern Samar, Las Navas in Northern Samar, Leyte town in Leyte province, Gandara and Tarangnan, both in the province of Samar.